HINABANGAN, Samar — Soldiers here have vowed to strengthen community outreach activities in Samar provinces to sustain the drive against New People’s Army in among the country’s poorest communities.
Colonel Alex Luna, commander of the Philippines Army’s 801st Brigade based in Fatima village, this town said on Thursday that while they intensify combat operations against armed rebels, they’re not setting aside efforts to win the hearts of vulnerable villagers.
“Our main job here is to sustain peace in areas prone to rebel’s influence. Our efforts to dismantle rebels must continue. These humanitarian services are all in addition to that,” said Luna, leader of the battalion tasked to fight insurgency in Samar and Eastern Samar provinces.
Outreach activities have been effective to counter recruitment activities of the New People’s Army in the island of Samar, known as one of the rebels’ strongholds in the country, Luna said.
“If people see us doing humanitarian activities in their communities, we gain their trust and respect. Through these efforts, they’re not easily convinced to join communist rebellion,” he added.
The army official said government troops had been engaged in gun battles with the NPA in more than four decades, but insurgency remained as a serious threat to Samar’s peace and order.
The two areas belong to the poorest provinces in the country. In the 2015 report by the Philippine Statistics Authority, Samar had a poverty incidence of 39.5 percent while Eastern Samar recorded a 37.4 percent poverty rate.
Samar provinces have been a stronghold of armed rebels due to its terrain consists of densely forested mountainous areas, high poverty incidence, and issue of widespread landlessness, according to a 2013 study of William Norman Holden of the University of Calgary in Canada.
The NPA launched its first tactical operation in the country in Calbiga, Samar in 1974, when it ambushed an army scout patrol and seized a number of their weapons. (Jazmin Bonifacio/PNA)
